Whole Foods says Trump’s actions make union win moot

Trump last week fired two leaders at the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that adjudicates disputes over labor organizing. That left the nation’s top labor regulator with only two members, rendering it unable to do business due to a lack of quorum.

Whole Foods’ objection to the election filed with the NLRB also accused the union — which won the Philadelphia vote 130-100 — of intimidating and coercing workers.

The regional NLRB official who will investigate the company’s objection could dismiss those concerns and certify the union win. But should Whole Foods disregard that decision, the agency could not enforce it until a replacement board member is nominated and confirmed.

Sharon Block, a Harvard law professor and former Democratic member of the labor board, said that could take months.

The Whole Foods filing made clear the company is “not going to abide by the outcome of the election,” Block said. “And now there’s nothing that can compel them to.”

Whole Foods previously said in a statement that it was “disappointed” in the result of the election at the downtown Philadelphia store. It separately told employees that it “respects” the vote, the union said. But a company statement shared via email Tuesday by spokesperson Rachel Malish said the union had “illegally interfered” with the vote at the Philadelphia store.

“We have filed objections to these illegal actions and have asked the NLRB to set aside the results of the election,” the statement said.

Union local president Wendell Young IV said that based on Amazon’s history of union avoidance, he expected Whole Foods to “try to stall this process.”

“Their goal is clear: They don’t want to bargain in good faith with their workers,” he said Tuesday in a news release.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Trump fired the two NLRB leaders within hours of Philadelphia Whole Foods workers becoming the second group of Amazon employees to ever win a formal union election last week.

The president had been widely expected to fire NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, a Biden appointee, but also took the unprecedented step of firing board member Gwynne Wilcox from a role that has for the last 90 years been considered immune from presidential dismissal.

Whole Foods’ filing Monday argued that because Trump’s decision effectively froze the board’s functionality, the board’s regional director “lacks authority” to “lawfully certify” the result of the union’s win.

Seth Goldstein, a labor lawyer who previously represented workers with Amazon Labor Union, called Whole Foods’ argument “insane” and said that many elections had been held when the board lacked a quorum, including during the Obama administration.

“Amazon doesn’t want this group to be certified, so they’re trying to come up with ridiculous arguments,” he said. “They’re throwing things at the wall.”

On Wednesday, Wilcox filed a lawsuit against Trump alleging that her firing broke the law by ignoring her protection against dismissal. Her case could propel the question of the NLRB’s constitutionality before the Supreme Court, The Post previously reported.

If Trump does not nominate someone to replace Wilcox, it could signal that he’s interested in testing legal precedent on executive power by getting the Supreme Court to take up the case.

Amazon itself recently argued the labor board may be structured unconstitutionally in federal court, echoing a similar case brought by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The companies allege that the NLRB’s structure improperly gives officials a blend of executive, judicial and legislative powers and protects them from removal.

In a letter to NLRB leaders last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote that Wilcox’s firing was “patently illegal” and had “paralyzed” the board. He asked to be briefed on how the board will ensure that unfair labor practice charges, investigations and representation elections will continue to be carried out in accordance with workers’ rights.

Amazon has for almost three years refused to bargain or meet with workers at a Staten Island warehouse who voted to unionize as the Amazon Labor Union in 2022, despite repeated rulings by labor board regional directors to dismiss its objections and certify the result.

On Monday, Trump named the NLRB’s Los Angeles-based regional director, Republican William Cowen, as acting general counsel. Trump has ties to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, unusual for a Republican president. Last year, the independent Amazon Labor Union voted to affiliate with the Teamsters, which effectively took over the national organizing campaign at Amazon.

The Teamsters are engaged with Amazon on a number of unfair labor practice charges before the labor relations board. One of them is an ongoing hearing that began in the spring regarding the firing of a worker named Griffin Ritze in Kentucky.

Ritze told The Post that he was illegally fired in early 2024 for protected union activity and was expecting a ruling from the NLRB next month. Now, he wrote in a post on X, Trump’s firings at the NLRB could end up “delaying a decision for YEARS.”